Ann Zumwalt Coppola stands with Carl Pepin, a Bath Iron Works welder, Lt. Col. James G. Zumwalt, USMC (retired) and Mouzetta Zumwalt-Weathers as a special steel plate containing the initials of the four children of Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt, demonstrating that the DDG 1000 keel is well and truly laid.

In 1965, he was the youngest naval officer ever to attain the rank of rear admiral.

He was head of Naval Operations in Vietnam from 1968 to 1970 and was named Chief of Naval Operations in 1974, the youngest person ever to attain that position.

He has been called the father of the modern Navy for ending racial and gender discrimination, and for easing demeaning rules. In 1998, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

And now, posthumously, Zumwalt has been awarded another honor. A class of naval destroyers has been named after him, one of very few destroyers named for an individual.

The first of three Zumwalt DDG 1000’s, a class of guided-missile destroyers, is being built at Bath Iron Works, a division of General Dynamics, in Bath, Maine. On Nov. 17, the Iron Works celebrated the ship’s keel laying.

Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr.

On hand to commemorate the event were many Navy dignitaries, the men and women responsible for building the new ship and members of Zumwalt’s family, including his daughter, Ann Zumwalt Coppola, of Longmeadow.

“It’s a one-of-a-kind ship named for a one-of-a-kind man,” Zumwalt Coppola said recently.

Like its namesake, this new class of ship is very different from its predecessors.

“It’s 50 percent larger than other destroyers,” Zumwalt Coppola said, “but will have a smaller crew because so much is computerized. It will be the most advanced ship on the high seas. Living conditions for sailors will be improved immensely, and the command center is like a scene out of ‘Star Trek.’”

The keel is the 4,000-ton mid-forebody section of the ship and represents one-third of the ship’s total length.

A special steel plate bearing the initials of the admiral’s four children was prepared for the ceremony. Zumwalt Coppola explained that as part of the keel laying, each of the three surviving children engraved a “one” beside the name of their deceased elder brother, Elmo R. Zumwalt III.

“We each donned welding gear,” she said, “and, in turn, put our hand on the welder’s arm as he inscribed a “one” beside my brother’s name, three times.”

The keel laying was the first of three ceremonies to be held prior to the ship’s launching, she explained. In July 2013, the ship will be christened, and then two and half years later, there will be the commissioning.

“There’s a lot of tradition associated with the Navy. It’s very lovely and beautiful,” she said.

Zumwalt Coppola describes her father as having been “wise.”

“I was in high school before I understood how many people view military fathers – as regimented, parochial, strict, cold and unyielding,” she said. “My father was none of those things. He was a mild man who never lost his temper. He was a fabulous listener who made everyone feel as if they mattered. He was nonjudgmental and incredibly patient. He believed that people coming from different backgrounds infused America with a pioneering spirit, that it takes all cultures to make America, and that there is no one kind of American.”

While she was in high school, the family lived in the Philippines when her father was head of naval operations in Vietnam. Both of her brothers served in that war.

Later, when her father was chief of naval operations, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where they lived in the house which now serves as the residence for the vice president.

“My father jumped 30 senior officers to become chief of naval operations – to the chagrin of many,” she said. “But, he was dignified and brilliant, what you expect a naval officer to be. Yet, whenever he introduced himself to someone who didn’t know who he was or what he did, he always said simply, ‘I’m a sailor.’”

Zumwalt Coppola met her husband, Dr. Michael Coppola, in Washington.

“He was a New Englander,” she explained, “and so we moved to Longmeadow.” They raised their two daughters Lauren and Camille, both now in their 20s, in Longmeadow. The young Coppola women will serve as maids of honor to the new ship named for their grandfather, and in that capacity, will watch over it during its lifetime.

A biography of Admiral Zumwalt, written by Larry Berman and published by Harper Collins, is scheduled to be released in December.